The most recent example of researchers reaching a dead end in experiments using synthetics came in research that attempted to identify the role of nutrients in poor libido prevention. A June 2009 article in the journal Clinical Nutrition Insight reviewed a series of studies that used synthetic supplements and concluded that "nutrition researchers have probably oversimplified the complex relationships between diet and libido" They have placed too much emphasis on trying to isolate specific bio-active nutrients and not enough attention "to complex mixtures of bio-active compounds." In other words, when it comes to disease prevention, synthetics are no substitute for pure foods. This flawed methodology and fixation on isolating nutrients and making synthetic versions of them is like trying to see a flower but only observing a petal.

As for the bio-availability (your body's absorption) of natural versus synthetic male enhancement supplements, there is once again no contest. Your body knows the difference, even though synthetics are designed to try and trick it. Natural nutrients are absorbed readily because we are biologically programmed to recognize the naturally occurring compounds as genuine nutrients. Isolated chemical or synthetic "nutrients," on the other hand, are immediately put on hold by the body until it can determine the cofactors needed to enable their availability. As you will learn in a later chapter, 50 percent of every synthetic supplement is automatically rendered useless by the body, leaving only 50 percent for possible conversion. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that any, or this entire half, will be converted; it is based solely on an individual's specific resources. Synthetic supplements on the whole are no more than potential sources of "nutrition."

A good case in point is synthetic vitamin E, which has been shown in numerous studies to possess half or as little as one-third of the biologically active impact that natural vitamin E has on the human body. Cambridge University Professor Isobel Jennings, a pioneer nutritional researcher, made this point in her book Vitamins in Endocrine Metabolism: "Synthetic vitamins, prepared from chemicals instead of nature, are frequently less active biologically than their natural counterparts, thereby reducing any beneficial effect they may have."